over the last few weeks - we've been trying to clear up some dead or dying trees (that are bad leaners - either near roadside or neighbours boundary) anyway my dad took an almost dead birch tree down recently and as he was about to cut it up into cord he noticed an unusual break in the bark - he peeled it back a bit - and there he found a very small bat - after replacing / folding back the bark, he left it where it was and didn't disturb the felled tree any more - but when he called me over to have a look - the bat had gone
i'm not that up on my bats i'm afraid - would this have been a pipistrelle - do you think?
are there any tell tell signs that a bat is hiding in the bark or wood etc of a dead tree?
reason i ask - is that we have quite a few really bad leaners to cut back - de limb if we can, fell if possible - dad found / disturbed another bat just a few days ago (in a badly split limb on a sweet chestnut) - the bat flew off / out of the crevise - just as the saw was going in
we don't want to disturb the bats - but we have to take some very dangerous limbs off some very dodgy trees along the boundary - how can we tell if a bat is hiding in there somewhere?
it's easy to spot the honey bees (which are nesting / swarming - whatever the term is - in a really old / decaying holm oak) as they make their presence felt in no uncertain terms - bird nests etc are also obvious - so how do you tell if a bat is living in one ?
we love to have the bats in the woods - dad even built a special bat house a few years ago (but i think squirrels got in there) so we'd like to keep any distruption to a minimum - even though we have to carry on with the de-limbing of these leaning trees - as we are on a sand / gravel soil structure and these trees will uproot if they are not seen to
